Week 11 of Living Arrows photographs. I absolutely love looking at all the other posts each week, even if I don’t quite get round to commenting on them all. If you haven’t been to the I Heart Snapping blog then I urge you to check it out.
This weeks photo is another close up portrait. Toby is generally a very smiley baby but I love to capture his more serious side too. I just love his little face and those eyes that feel like they’re looking right into your heart. I wonder what he is thinking?
It’s time to link up with Katie at Mummy Daddy Me for another Ordinary Moment. This week’s Ordinary Moment is something I have to admit I’m not entirely proud of! Toby has been fascinated by the TV since he was tiny. He will usually sit with us on the sofa quite happily (for a little while at least) and watch whatever it is we happen to be watching.
But recently I have actually succumbed to the lure of CBeebies! I was never one of those parents who said ‘my child is never going to watch TV!’. After all I’m a bit of a telly addict myself. But I didn’t think I’d be putting on kids’ TV shows to keep him quiet just yet.
Actually we have the TV on much less now than before Toby was born. If I had a day at home before I would literally turn the TV on when I got up and it wouldn’t go off until it was time for bed. But now Toby is so enamoured with watching TV that it is impossible to feed him (milk or solids) with it on because he gets too distracted. So with that and starting this blog I seem to have a lot less time for watching TV these days.
Anyway, there never seems to be anything good on CBeebies when I turn it on so I’ve recorded a few episodes of Raa Raa the Lion and Waybaloo so there’s something to stick on if I need to keep Toby’s attention and keep him out of trouble for five minutes. He seems to be transfixed by it and so it stops him rolling and wriggling all over the room!
So there we are – watching TV is a very ordinary moment in our house. I’m actually quite looking forward to Toby being old enough to concentrate on TV and films, and actually understand what’s going on, so I can start sharing some of my favourites with him.
A combination of lack of time, computer access and inspiration has meant that I have missed the last couple of weeks of The Prompt. However, I am still loving this linky from Sara at mumturnedmom and I’m pleased I am able to join in again this week.
This week’s prompt is a quote and it seemed to come at such a opportune time for me as this week has been all about making new plans.
Last Saturday my friend Claire came to babysit for the evening so Barry and I could go out for dinner. It was only the fourth time we’ve been out without Toby since he was born so we wanted to make the most of it. We went out, tried not to talk about Toby too much, and we made some plans. We’ve both been a bit fed up about various things lately, life has just kind of being plodding along, so we decided it was time to make some changes. None of them are massive changes but hopefully things that will make things better for all of us.
First up, we’re going to buy another car. At the moment Barry gets up at 6 am, he leaves the house at 6:30 am to walk to the train station twenty minutes away. He then gets the train to Edinburgh (another half an hour) and at the other end has another half hour walk to his office to start work at 8 am. He leaves the office about 4 pm usually and walks back to the station to get the train and then we pick him up at the other end. He pays £160 a month for the pleasure of getting a train which is often delayed and sometimes cancelled altogether. We did some maths and if we get a small, fuel efficient car, something like a Toyota Aygo it would cost the same if not a bit less and he would knock two hours off his commute. He has spoken to his work and they have agreed he can work 7-3 most days so he would be home for not long after 3:30 pm. Which would also help me as I wouldn’t have such long days on my own with Toby. So that’s the first part of the plan.
The second part is a bit more long term. When Barry first moved to Scotland to live with me we always had a plan that at some vague point in the future we would move back to England. I’ve lived here for over ten years now and I do like it but I can’t see myself staying here forever. We’d both like to live nearer our parents in the north of England. When Toby was born, we decided on a five year plan; that we would move back before Toby started primary school. We currently live in a three bedroom house, it’s (or was) a new build about ten years old. It’s a nice house but we haven’t really done anything to it, apart from decorate Toby’s room since we moved in two and a half years ago. We had a vague thought that if we have another baby that we might move to a bigger house here in Scotland before our big move down south. Because of this we weren’t really making any effort with the house we have. As well as decorating there are a few other little things which we could sort out quite easily and they would make it a much nicer and more practical place to live. So after talking about it at the weekend we decided we would definitely rule out a move until we were ready to move to our ‘forever house’ in England and instead we would spend some time (and unfortunately) money sorting out the house we have now.
So, in no particular order we are going to decorate and tile the bathroom, rearrange the kitchen to make room for a big fridge freezer, reorganise our third bedroom which we use as an study/spare room to make better use of the space, and then probably decorate the rest of the house too. Oh, and out of the blue Barry’s dad offered to buy us a shed! So that’s going to need a bit of preparation work in the garden to make space and then all the gardening stuff can be moved out of the garage and we can reclaim some of that space too.
It somehow feels right to be making plans in spring – the first flowers have come out in the garden, the days are getting longer and it feels right to be getting life organised.
I can’t believe we are ten weeks into 2014 already! Where on earth is the time going? Toby is getting bigger and more active every day. I snapped this weeks Living Arrows picture whilst trying to take some photos of a new nappy we’re trying out. I put Toby down facing away from me on the rug and within half a second he had spun round on his tummy and was pushing up trying to get his little baby face in the picture! With all the spinning and wriggling he does it’s like he’s break dancing sometimes.
We’ve been talking about taking Toby to the park for a go on the swings for a few weeks now but either we haven’t had the time, or the weather has been horrible, but yesterday the sun was shining so we bundled him up and headed to one of our many local parks.
I’m not sure Toby was entirely convinced about his first go on the swing – I’m sure he’ll work out soon enough that it’s supposed to be fun!
We did manage to catch this little smile though…
I’m sure that going to the park will soon turn into an ordinary moment for us. I can’t wait until the weather gets a bit better, and Toby gets a bit bigger, so we can enjoy trips to the park. There are loads of little play parks all round the different bits of housing estates round here and we’ve also got a huge park in town that has got a lovely cafe and what looks like an awesome playground (although I haven’t tried it myself!).
And if you fancy a bit of video, here’s Toby in action!
Every week day, at quarter past five, I put Toby in the car and we go and pick his dad up from the station. Usually if we’re early we wait in the car for the train to get in, and Toby usually starts getting a bit squirmy if we have to wait for more than a few minutes. So yesterday as the last of the day’s sun was still in the sky, and as a part of my new ‘operation get more fresh air’ we got out of the car, put Toby in the buggy and went down to the platform to wait for the train.
Toby was by parts excited and somewhat bemused to be somewhere new, and outside, particularly at the end of the day.
He also seemed to enjoy watching the gulls that were flying overhead. I was happy to get these pictures while we were waiting for daddy. And daddy was happy that we were there on the platform to meet him off the train.
It’s week nine of the I Heart Snapping Living Arrows project and I’ve not got too much to say about this week’s picture…apart from, just look at him! He’s too cute.
Toby is usually very amenable to having his photo taken – he must be so used to it now, we’ve been doing it almost every day since he was born. I love his expression on this next photo though – it’s just as if he’s saying ‘that’s enough now mum!’. He’s got so much personality these days and I love when I manage to capture it on camera.
